Re: [LEAPSECS] floating prime meridian

From: Steve Allen <sla_at_ucolick.org>
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 10:19:14 -0700

On Wed 2000-09-06T21:19:24 -0400, John Cowan hath writ:
> Because leap seconds affect universal time, not just local time, and
> they affect duration. How do I schedule an event for one year
> from now precisely? I can't. It might be any time from
> 31535998 seconds to 31622402 seconds from now. The day of variability
> is extremely predictable. The four seconds of variability is not.

Outside of England UT isn't the relevant timescale for most civil and
legal purposes; local time is. The recent efforts of the Australian
legislators certainly hampered any kind of countdown until a given
local time.

I am at a loss to conceive of any application which needs an
unsegmented, predictive countdown of UT to an accuracy of one part in
1e7. Please given an example of where such would be used.

--
Steve Allen          UCO/Lick Observatory       Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla_at_ucolick.org      Voice: +1 831 459 3046     http://www.ucolick.org/~sla
PGP: 1024/E46978C5   F6 78 D1 10 62 94 8F 2E    49 89 0E FE 26 B4 14 93
Received on Thu Sep 07 2000 - 10:19:31 PDT

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